Jutting out from Dan McMaster's porch in Owosso, Mich., is a flag bearing the Republican Party's logo. Steve Gunn looked to the future of the party in this week's column. AP FILE PHOTO

It’s extremely stupid to raise taxes on the investor class when
we desperately need new business investment to jumpstart the economy. We
can’t expect the wealthy to create new companies and new jobs if we’re
taking away their gambling money in the form of taxes.

But,
of course, America will survive a tax hike on the wealthiest 2 percent,
or 5 percent, or 10 percent of its citizens. They will pay the higher
rates and still be millionaires.

But I wish Obama and his
liberal allies would stop misleading Americans by telling us that the
wealthiest Americans need to “pay their fair share.”

Somehow
Americans have gotten the mistaken idea that the wealthy actually pay
fewer tax dollars than working people. They sometimes pay lower rates
than working people, due to various types of deductions and loopholes.
But a billionaire with a 12 percent tax rate is still paying a heck of
lot more than a working person with a 20 percent rate.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the wealthiest 1 percent of
Americans already pay about 40 percent of all personal income taxes,
while the wealthiest 10 percent pay about 70 percent. Meanwhile, the 50
percent who make the least money only pay about 3 percent of personal
income taxes.

I also wish we would get over the idea that
raising taxes on anyone -- wealthy or otherwise -- will provide a
long-term answer to our budget nightmare.

Here's what MLive and Chronicle readers had to say.

Greg Howard argued that the problem is the "investor class" doesn't invest in America:

The
dirty little secret that the GOP doesn't tell you about income tax rate
over 200k, those not running small businesses (98% earn less than 200k)
do not reinvest their income into the business. In addition, profits
that are directly reinvested into your company are NOT taxed. Raising
high level income taxes does not hurt small businesses.

dinoshark points out the House of Represenatives controls the purse strings and that will keep the nation from spending more:

The Obama base is saying
increase spending and tax the rich. And they feel entitled to it.
However, the Democrats DO NOT control the purse of the United States,
that is controlled by the House of Representatives. All expenditures
start at the House; no new dollars can be directed anywhere if the House
does not approve it. Those are pretty big cards to hold. And the
House can sit on their hands to slow down the unmitigated spending of
the liberal idealists and do nothing. No new spending will start.

Here's how it works -- Republicans, being the "fiscal responsibility"
party have blown over 10 times the money that the Democrats have while
in control of things. This is because once they are actually in charge,
they don't spend their time trying to rein in spending, they spend
their time trying to make being gay illegal, trying to deport people,
trying to tell people that some variation of a Christian religion is our
true religion, trying to tell women that they should be subordinates,
telling Mexicans, Indians, and others that they are worthless.

If the Republicans want to actually get elected again, they will need
to drop ALL of the "social issues," and run entirely on financial
issues. They need to support actual freedom in this nation, instead of
bigotry, hatred, and stupidity. The Democrats will win, as long as the
Republicans are the party of oppression, and not the party of reining in
government spending and war.